Bangladesh Social Enterprise Project - Bangladesh Enterprise Institute
Bangladesh Social Enterprise Project - Bangladesh Enterprise Institute Bangladesh Social Enterprise Project - Bangladesh Enterprise Institute
multinationals), opportunities, skills and information. business skills but also in new technologies and financing mechanisms. Entrepreneurs need training in basic Donors and social investors need to become more risk tolerant. A standard rule of thumb in commercial venture capital is that the failure rate in the process of going from a business idea through to a pilot project through to a small venture through to a big business is 90% at each stage 7 – i.e. to get one big business one has to have a portfolio of 1000 ideas or 100 pilot projects. Donors have to be willing to support (with capital, training and expertise) a wide range of emerging ideas and have M&E mechanisms which tolerate a high level of failure. For such a failure rate to be affordable, donors and social entrepreneurs have to focus on developing low‐cost pilot projects which rapidly test the key assumptions of a business idea before large‐scale implementation is considered. Donors and social investors have to more tolerant of uncertainty. If they insist on wellproduced long‐term business plans in English they will simply exacerbate the problem of elite dominance of entrepreneurship. Donors and investors need to accept that initial business ideas will often be ill‐formed and highly uncertain. In particular it is often impossible to predict the long‐term potential of an idea. Donors and investors should not impose a tick‐box mentality of “ensuring” that each project will contribute to a long list of donor objectives such as social inclusion, gender mainstreaming and sustainable development – in many cases it is simply impossible to say whether these objectives will be met. Instead, donors and investors should focus on whether the pilot project offers a reasonable prospect of alleviating a specific, welldefined social problem at an acceptable cost. The design of this project initially envisaged bringing together potential entrepreneurs, big business and Government to work together to invent and develop new social enterprise concepts from scratch. In practice this proved to be too ambitious, particularly because big business and Government representatives were not willing to spend time working on the initial 7 Gary Hamel, ‘Competing for the Future’. BSEP: Policy Brief Page 10
stages of ideas. Whilst some good ideas were generated, we did not find cross‐sectoral teams forming to actually implement them. We adapted the project to support teams of entrepreneurs who had existing ideas, helping them to crystallise their business models and present a compelling case to donors and potential investors. This proved successful and each of the five teams who went through the process gained promises of funding from at least one donor or investor. The lesson we draw is that rather than starting from zero, projects should seek to identify entrepreneurs, or teams of entrepreneurs, who have existing ideas and help them to develop their concepts into plans for a pilot stage. Potential investors, customers or supporters should only be brought in once the concept has reached a reasonable degree of maturity. In addition, donors can “pump prime” potential entrepreneurs by giving them information on social business models, in particular based on new technology, which have proved successful elsewhere. Donors should ensure that engineering, IT and finance experts are well‐represented in projects, to complement the skills of the public policy and economic experts who typically attend donor events. 4.4 Implication for Government Bangladesh has a strong worldwide reputation for social enterprise. The Government could build on this, with benefits to Bangladesh’s overall “brand”. 1. We recommend that the Government of Bangladesh supports the establishment of a global centre of excellence for social entrepreneurship in Dhaka. This might be supported by donors and should be led by an appropriate Bangladeshi NGO. Apart from the direct impacts such a centre might have on the promotion of social enterprise in Bangladesh, we assess that the creation of such a centre would provide a powerful signaling effect to national and international social entrepreneurs. 2. We recommend that the Government avoids instituting any specific tax breaks or developing a separate tax regime for social enterprises. Many of the conventional entrepreneurs involved in our project identified the risk that social enterprises would, BSEP: Policy Brief Page 11
- Page 1 and 2: 2010 Bangladesh Social Enterprise P
- Page 3 and 4: Bangladesh Social Enterprise Projec
- Page 5 and 6: It should of course be noted that c
- Page 7 and 8: easonable rate of return, meaning t
- Page 9: 4.2 Implications for local and mult
- Page 13 and 14: ANNEXURE BSEP: Policy Brief Page 13
- Page 15 and 16: BIJOY (Bangladesh Institute of Job
- Page 17 and 18: S h a s t h o Transforming Healthca
- Page 19 and 20: BUSINESS MODEL: Input 648 candidate
- Page 21 and 22: The DRIVEN platform is built around
- Page 23 and 24: ANNEX B CASE STUDIES OF BANGLADESHI
- Page 25 and 26: “Rural Sales Program: Empowering
- Page 27 and 28: “Dietary Supplement Sachets and I
- Page 29 and 30: “Waste Recycling, Energy, Poverty
- Page 31 and 32: “Medical Care, Education, Empower
- Page 33 and 34: “Create a Harmonious Work Environ
- Page 35 and 36: “Rural Centre Model Creating Flex
- Page 37 and 38: Study on the Perception of Social E
- Page 39 and 40: initiative and environmental issues
- Page 41 and 42: ANNEX C - LITERATURE REVIEW This an
- Page 43 and 44: foster development’ It examines w
- Page 45 and 46: The publication outlines the basics
- Page 47 and 48: which traditional capitalism cannot
- Page 49 and 50: Berkes, F. & Davidson‐Hunt, I. J.
- Page 51 and 52: Husted, B. W. & Allen, D.B. 2007.
- Page 53 and 54: strategic alternate, but requires t
- Page 55 and 56: “GREEN” CASE STUDIES AND ENERGY
- Page 57 and 58: ENERGY LENDING Based on FDC Briefin
- Page 59 and 60: capacity to pay for loans for energ
stages of ideas. Whilst some good ideas were generated, we did not find cross‐sectoral teams<br />
forming to actually implement them. We adapted the project to support teams of<br />
entrepreneurs who had existing ideas, helping them to crystallise their business models and<br />
present a compelling case to donors and potential investors. This proved successful and each of<br />
the five teams who went through the process gained promises of funding from at least one<br />
donor or investor. The lesson we draw is that rather than starting from zero, projects should<br />
seek to identify entrepreneurs, or teams of entrepreneurs, who have existing ideas and help<br />
them to develop their concepts into plans for a pilot stage. Potential investors, customers or<br />
supporters should only be brought in once the concept has reached a reasonable degree of<br />
maturity. In addition, donors can “pump prime” potential entrepreneurs by giving them<br />
information on social business models, in particular based on new technology, which have<br />
proved successful elsewhere. Donors should ensure that engineering, IT and finance experts<br />
are well‐represented in projects, to complement the skills of the public policy and economic<br />
experts who typically attend donor events.<br />
4.4 Implication for Government<br />
<strong>Bangladesh</strong> has a strong worldwide reputation for social enterprise. The Government could<br />
build on this, with benefits to <strong>Bangladesh</strong>’s overall “brand”.<br />
1. We recommend that the Government of <strong>Bangladesh</strong> supports the establishment of a<br />
global centre of excellence for social entrepreneurship in Dhaka. This might be<br />
supported by donors and should be led by an appropriate <strong>Bangladesh</strong>i NGO. Apart from<br />
the direct impacts such a centre might have on the promotion of social enterprise in<br />
<strong>Bangladesh</strong>, we assess that the creation of such a centre would provide a powerful<br />
signaling effect to national and international social entrepreneurs.<br />
2. We recommend that the Government avoids instituting any specific tax breaks or<br />
developing a separate tax regime for social enterprises. Many of the conventional<br />
entrepreneurs involved in our project identified the risk that social enterprises would,<br />
BSEP: Policy Brief<br />
Page 11
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